


Reaching Out

by EmiWanKenobi



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gratuitous use of italics, I haven't finished the episode yet but I woke up with intense shadowgast feelings so here this is, M/M, Oneshot, Shadowgast, Sort Of, Touch-Starved Essek Thelyss, gratuitous use of the word and, spoilers for ep 128, the ship is mostly implied/its in the pining stages, what even is my writing style and why does it become this whenever I write angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-06
Updated: 2021-03-06
Packaged: 2021-03-19 05:29:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 841
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29869872
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EmiWanKenobi/pseuds/EmiWanKenobi
Summary: Caleb is hurting.(aka: a random shadowgast snippet with spoilers for at least the first half of ep. 128)
Relationships: Essek Thelyss/Caleb Widogast
Comments: 20
Kudos: 195





	Reaching Out

**Author's Note:**

> Full disclosure: I wrote this during my lunch break, having only watched the first two hours of episode 128. Caleb was just so sad and it hurt me so much, so then of course my brain turned it into shadowgast angst.

Caleb is hurting.

It doesn’t take a genius to see it. Essek spares a glance at him, a glance again, watching him while the others explain in a disjointed, chaotic way.

Dead guards, stolen pendants, a place all of them seem unwilling to name. 

Trent Ikathon.

There is a whole history of hurt hidden in that name. Essek knows Ikathon just well enough to fear him, and he suspects what he knows doesn’t cover even a fraction of all there is.  _ Dangerous _ does not even begin to define him.

Caleb’s eyes are haunted, more so than usual. He’s jittery, can’t seem to hold still, yet his movements are stiff, restricted. Like if he moves too quickly he will fall apart.

Essek shifts. His fingers flex. There’s an itch in his palm, a desire to reach out, to touch, to help. As Caleb has done twice now for him.

But he cannot, he should not, he does not have the right, nor even the words—what comfort can he give that Caleb’s closest friends have not already? These are the logical arguments he thinks through, determined to keep himself in check.

And yet.

Caleb is hurting. This time he is the one who will not look at Essek, a guilt in his expression which Essek cannot understand. Even when it is explained—that Ikathon knows, or at least suspects that Caleb is allied with Essek—it makes no sense. Surely Caleb knows that nothing he’s done matters. Essek is a man living on borrowed time, and his doom is of his own making.

His fingertips ache with the need to reach out. To brush against a worn hand, a stubbled cheek. But if he does, he might cause more harm than good. To touch Caleb, who moves and speaks like fractured glass just waiting for an excuse to shatter, can only make things worse.

His heart aches. It’s time to part again, briefly. The Nein are spent, they need to rest. Essek has known them long enough now to see the toll recent events are taking. They’re all tired, worried, carrying the Fate of the world on their ragtag shoulders. As they leave him, walking back out into the cold, Essek is afraid for them.

In the last moment Caleb pauses near him, and still won’t look him in the eye. He stands stiff, looks down at his hands as he twists them together. “I, ah… I am—I am  _ sorry _ ,” he says, and it’s barely louder than a whisper.

Essek is good with words; spins them like webs, obscures the truth with them, weaves spells with them. But the words needed now are difficult to form: comfort, assurance; skills he has never bothered to acquire. Words  _ do _ come:  _ It will be alright _ or  _ I am only who I am now because of you, don’t be sorry for that. Never for that.  _ But they all says too little or too much, he stops them on the tip of his tongue, and the moment passes. Caleb turns away, taking the silence as condemnation, maybe, and that is too much. Essek’s fingertips burn like ice, and then like fire when they reach without permission to catch against Caleb’s hand. Caleb stops, looks up in surprise to meet equal surprise in Essek, and... he doesn’t pull away. For a brief moment of time they are locked together, fingers tangled, gaze holding gaze, and there is so much to say and no adequate words, not enough  _ time _ , and yet there must be something—

“ _ Breathe _ .” Essek says it in a whisper. “Just breathe.”

Caleb’s expression crumbles, only for a moment, but a moment is enough. He looks away, makes a little sound, and his fingers tighten around Essek’s for a fraction of a second. But he listens and a breath is drawn, released, drawn again.

Their fingers are still linked, a tenuous connection bridging a gap. Essek dares to bridge it further, leans closer, lays his empty hand on Caleb’s shoulder. Two points of touch.

“ _ This _ ,” he adds, still in a low whisper, “Is not your fault.”

And Caleb laughs, or sobs, and it’s all broken glass and jagged edges.

“You do not believe it yet, but you will. Not in days, not in weeks. But in time, Caleb. In time.”

There is a sniffle, and Essek turns his face away, feels unworthy of witnessing such a feeling from such a man. But a small tug on his hand draws him back, and Caleb is breathing again, nodding, carefully pulling himself back together.

“Ja. In time.”

_ Time _ . It warps around them, a moment that seems to stretch for an hour. Eventually that moment passes, and their hands fall apart, but not before Essek feels a gentle squeeze, hears an unspoken  _ thank you. _

Caleb is hurting. That is still true, and if Essek has done anything it has only been to patch one small crack in a thousand. And yet it’s with a look of  _ something _ that Caleb leaves him to join the rest.

And Essek’s hand burns.

**Author's Note:**

> Kudos are cupcakes and comments are love <3  
> Crossposted to my  Tumblr 


End file.
